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Before embarking on the discussion of the unusual happenings in the animal kingdom promised in Part 1, I’d like to cite a quote that demonstrates the nature and impact of exponential change. The quote comes from a remarkable article from Reuters:

about major world cities combating the combination of rising seas and sinking landmass due to subsidence from draining the groundwater under each city:

Higher seas, sinking cities and more people mean worsening impacts from storms and floods. And the frequency of these events is increasing, too. Recorded floods and severe storms in Southeast Asia have risen sixfold, from fewer than 20 from 1960 to 1969 to nearly 120 from 2000 to 2008, according to an Asian Development Bank study.

So a sixfold increase in severe storms in SE Asia: Take a guess what annual percent increase in storms accounted for that sixfold change. The answer is 6%. Six percent per year doesn’t sound like much. But when it’s applied relentlessly–and that is the nature of an exponential increase–the change seems small at first, but at some point, the change can be overwhelming. Food for thought regarding the many exponential chart patterns shown over time at Thundering Heard. We are living in unprecedented times on many fronts.

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The point about pervasive permeability in Part 1 (accidental alliteration!) sparked some interest. Here’s a perfect example of increasing permeability, in this case in the Greenland ice sheet from Phys.org:

I have a lot more links for animals attacking humans (especially coyotes, jackals, wild dogs, and wild boars, but also including owls, foxes, and otters), but I’ll spare you having to scroll past them, and pass to another category: regional animal die-offs across many species.

in which he listed reports of devastations of West Coast starfish (A marine epidemiologist at Cornell University says that this is “the largest mortality event for marine diseases we’ve seen“); bluefin tuna (only 4% are left); sardine, anchovy, herring, and oyster populations; and major difficulties for many marine birds including pelicans. And more:

At an ocean research station known as Station M, located 145 miles out to sea between the Californian cities of Santa Barbara and Monterey, Huffard and her colleague Ken Smith observed a sharp uptick in the amount of dead sea life drifting to the ocean floor. The masses of dead sea plankton, jellyfish, feces and other oceanic matter that typically only cover about 1 percent of the ocean floor were found to now be covering about 98 percent of it — and multiple other stations located throughout the Pacific have since reported similar figures.

“In March 2012, less than one percent of the seafloor beneath Station M was covered in dead sea salps,” writes Carrie Arnold for National Geographic. “By July 1, more than 98 percent of it was covered in the decomposing organisms. … The major increase in activity of deep-sea life in 2011 and 2012 weren’t limit to Station M, though: Other ocean-research stations reported similar data.”

So, what are the reasons for this dreadful state of affairs. There are several, to be sure.

In the case of the whales (and perhaps the other creatures that normally inhabit the ocean depths and who can now be found at the beaches), one major cause is certain: the use of powerful sonar technologies by the militaries to hunt for submarines and the oil and gas companies to hunt for that stuff we pump into our cars. This link:

has a sad but amazing story of how proof of this was accepted by the US Navy itself. A retired navy guy with an interest in whales–the guy actually worked in the navy’s secret sonar program–witnessed the beaching of 17 beaked whales immediately following US Navy exercises in his area. This is the deepest diving whale species of them all. For them to beach as a group was unprecedented. Suspecting the cause, the guy immediately had their heads sent to a lab for autopsy and it was found that the ear drums of each whale had been shattered. The guy had to get this info onto the 60 Minutes television program before the navy would respond, but finally, respond they did, strongly limiting their own sonar use during exercises. And this link:

Perhaps the deflationary wave that has been sent to the world economy–the price of oil, at $45.29 per barrel today, has now been cut by 58% since June, natural gas prices have also been crashing (again), and interest rates are now negative in several countries–will provide the kindness of some relief for the creatures of the ocean deep, kindness that humanity has been unwilling to provide.

Another monster problem for sea creatures and ocean birds is tens of thousands of tons of plastic:

One highly-recommended article that really gets the point across about the state of the oceans, especially the Pacific, is this one by an Australian yachtsman, which should be a must-read for everyone:

What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.

The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he’d had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.

“There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn’t catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice,” Macfadyen recalled.

But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.

No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all…

If that sounds depressing, it only got worse.

The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

“After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead,” Macfadyen said.

“We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

“I’ve done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I’m used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen.”

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes.

“Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it’s still out there, everywhere you look.”

This lack of ocean fish is killing the ocean-migrating birds because there is nothing for them to eat:

Author and legendary conservationist Lawrence Anthony died March 2. His family spoke of a solemn procession of Elephants that defies human explanation…

For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives. The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony…

For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu – to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died?…

There are two elephant herds at Thula Thula. According to his son Dylan, both arrived at the Anthony family compound shortly after Anthony’s death. “They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey,” Dylan is quoted in various local news accounts. “The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They all hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush.”

If humans were more rational, perhaps we would be trying to understand elephants’ telepathy and empathy rather than killing them for their tusks.

And then there are the poisons we spray, and the systemic poisons created by design in GMO crops:

Neurotoxic pesticides blamed for the decline of honeybees is also harming butterflies, worms, fish, and birds, and contaminating habitats worldwide which are crucial for food production and wildlife, scientists have concluded after a four-year assessment.

So we’re not just poisoning ourselves–and the bees and pollinators who are crucial to one third of humanity’s food supply–with toxic chemicals:

we’re poisoning lots of species.

And what about the migratory animals, both birds and sea creatures, who are losing their way?

It turns out that some migratory birds are stymied when they encounter the edges of a city, industrial area, or campus. The electromagnetic emanations from these places disturb the workings of these birds’ navigation systems. Given that experiments have shown that the emanations from wifi routers can kill plants, I guess it isn’t surprising that our electromagnetics are disturbing animals. And probably us as well.

And how can I fail to mention how we treat animals raised for food, putting them in cramped industrial settings and cages prior to their slaughter. Were it not for strong doses of antibiotics–which end up on our plates–most of these animals would die of disease.

Is the growing 2014 trend of animal attacks on people an indication that they have started to fight back? We better hope not. If the animal kingdom ever decided to fight with us, we’d likely all be dead within months. Without the ceaseless cleanup of our environment by insects, worms, algae, bacteria, fungi, etc., we would find ourselves living in waste. As it is, these beings constantly process billions of tons of materials into forms useful for us. And we often pay them back by trying to exterminate them, interested in the endless “growth, growth, growth” chant of our so-called leaders who definitely have no understanding of the exponential function.

Everyone has heard of the “lost animal syndrome” where there is a notable increase in pets getting lost before earthquakes. Are the animal agitations and disorientations a reaction to current Earth changes, or to an impending mega-Earth change. If it’s the latter, one might shudder to think what that would be.

Are the animals who normally remain deep in the oceans reacting to increases in methane and volcanic materials coming from the ocean floor? Perhaps.

Are the animal attacks a reaction to the changing energies of our evolving world? Are they reacting to the rapid decrease in Earth’s magnetic field, described here:

…based on the latest readings from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) satellite array called Swarm:

Once every few hundred thousand years the magnetic poles flip so that a compass would point south instead of north. While changes in magnetic field strength are part of this normal flipping cycle, data from Swarm have shown the field is starting to weaken faster than in the past. Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner…

(Wow, 5% per decade. An exponential progression to be reckoned with.)

Or are the animal attacks on humans simply the animals reflecting our own emotional and mental states?

It seems clear that the assault, often clearly our assault, on the animal kingdom, and the plant kingdom, is unwise. Some Churchianity people quote Genesis about man being given “dominion” over the animals and plants. For some, this somehow justifies pillage and plunder versus the stewardship that, logically, must have been the intended meaning of the statement. Undoubtedly, dominion can’t mean the creation of a wasteland. But that is what we are doing in many domains. Here’s an excellent indicator of the bad news (I promise to follow it with some good news!):

A recent NPR article highlights the truly frightening environmental effect of monoculture. NPR commentator and science writer Craig Childs decided to replicate a photo project by David Liittschwager, a portrait photographer who spent years traveling the world dropping one-cubic-foot metal frames into gardens, streams, parks, forests, and oceans, photographing anything and everything that entered the frame.

Around the world, his camera captured thousands of plants, animals, and insects within the cubes, with entirely different “worlds” of plants and animals living as little as a few feet away from each other.

Childs recruited a friend, and together they set out to replicate Littschwager’s “critter census” in a corn field in Grundy County, Iowa.

But whereas Littschwager’s camera captured several dozens of insects wherever he set up his frames, Childs and friend found nothing stirring among the genetically engineered corn stalks on the 600 acre farm in Iowa, where they spent an entire weekend crawling around on the ground. No signs of life with the exception of an isolated spider, a single red mite, and a couple grasshoppers.

“It felt like another planet entirely,” Childs said. “I listened and heard nothing, no birds, no clicks from insects. There were no bees. The air, the ground, seemed vacant. Yet, 100 years ago, these same fields, these prairies, were home to 300 species of plants, 60 mammals, 300 birds, hundreds and hundreds of insects,” Robert Krulwich writes2. “This soil was the richest, the loamiest in the state. And now, in these patches, there is almost literally nothing but one kind of living thing. We’ve erased everything else.”

The good news, the very good news, is that more and more people (permaculturists, organic growers, channelers of information from the devic realm in places like Findhorn and Perelandra, occultists, etc.) are realizing that nature provides a physical and energetic abundance that is currently well beyond our comprehension and perception; that we should be working with the processes, energies, and intelligences that provide that abundance rather than working against them; and that our own evolution depends directly on our turning our interaction with the natural kingdoms from one of exploitation and devastation to one of great respect and harmony. In this exponential accelerating trend lies great hope for us all.

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(*Note of credit and thanks: Many links in this article come from the amazing SOTT.NET Earth Changes tracking page. They make great videos summarizing each month’s earth changes; you can see them here. As stated elsewhere, I think they do a wonderful job of collecting information, but a poor job of theorizing about its causes. They say that there is so much global cooling that a new ice age has already started, that “Planet X” is on the way, etc. I think they are wrong about these things. However, they do seem to like G.I. Gurdjieff, so there is hope.)

What is the effect of acceleration in the animal kingdom? What is the Transition? Part 3 showed a chart of the acceleration, the parabolic rise, of species extinction. And while that level of abstraction is important to grasp, seeing the details is another matter. The following articles, collected from the web over just the last four weeks, help to bring home the reality of the current stresses on the animal kingdom. Mass deaths are happening across the world, across many species. These incidents show that we’ve gone way beyond the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” This is not business as usual.

Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply.

Multiple factors – pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition – are believed to cause the losses, which were officially announced today by a consortium of academic researchers, beekeepers and Department of Agriculture scientists.

Volunteers have pulled 25 tonnes of dead carp out of a lake in eastern Germany – there are so many, locals are running out of boats. Regional officials have admitted they are baffled – only carp seem to be dying in the lake.

Biologists removed three more dead bottlenose dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon Monday, bringing this year’s total lagoon bottlenose body count to at least 30.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration already has declared the 100 or so manatee deaths in the lagoon since mid-2012 an Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Event. The declaration triggers NOAA’s own formal investigation. The federal agency is examining whether the dolphin and manatee deaths might be connected.

With researchers from Louisiana and South Carolina, the scientists found that Gulf killifish embryos exposed to sediments from oiled locations in 2010 and 2011 show developmental abnormalities, including heart defects, delayed hatching and reduced hatching success. The killifish is an environmental indicator species, or a “canary in the coal mine,” used to predict broader exposures and health risks.

Hundreds of beached dolphin carcasses, shrimp with no eyes, contaminated fish, ancient corals caked in oil and some seriously unwell people are among the legacies that scientists are still uncovering in the wake of BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

“There were about four or five dolphins in the water and it seemed at first as if they were trying to get hold of something and support it,” said Ho Tak-ching, 34, a guide with Hong Kong Dolphinwatch. “It really wasn’t normal behaviour.”

The dolphins were trying to help a mother support the body of her dead calf and stop it slipping below the water’s surface.

Grieving and unable to accept their calves’ deaths, the mother dolphins will spend up to two weeks trying to keep them on the surface of the water, exhausting themselves and going without food as other dolphins rally to help them.

The events above were from just one month. It seems more than likely that there are many, many more incidents that are unseen and unreported. And of course it’s true that our physical bodies are subject to many of the same stresses plaguing the animals. But hey, as long as lots of people are shopping, things must be fine.